


I Had Fun Once (it was awful)

by preussisch_blau



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Abuse of Parenthetical Statements, Age Difference, Barry Allen's A++ Sartorial Choices, Borderline crack, Fanart, Featuring: Characters Barely Appearing in this Fic, Gen, Harry is also a dick, Irresponsible Use of Superpowers, They are Both Dorks, but we knew that already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 15:03:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5338496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preussisch_blau/pseuds/preussisch_blau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harrison thought it was impossible for clothing to annoy him any more than it already has. Unfortunately, Earth-2 (because his Earth is the original, thankyouverymuch) has a remarkable capacity for proving him wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Had Fun Once

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jujubiest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Novelties](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5324630) by [jujubiest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest), [preussisch_blau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/preussisch_blau/pseuds/preussisch_blau). 



> gift for jujubiest. I promised bribery with fanart in return for the glory that is Novelties. Somehow, fanfic happened as well. Sorry, not sorry.
> 
> You might want to read Novelties for this to make sense. Actually, read Novelties anyways. It's fucking hilarious.
> 
> The actual ~~bribe~~ fanart is in the second chapter. This is just the longwinded explanation behind the art that occurred when I started typing up a brief explanation and had the idea run away from me.
> 
> Also, whilst the shirt he wears is the first one Barry gets him in The Fic I Have Named Too Many Times Already, the picture was already inked and partially coloured when The Oft Aforementioned Fic was posted. And since it has taken me too bloody long already, I decided to just leave it as is. Since somehow, with no consultation, we had almost the exact same idea.

"If you don't put it on, I'm putting it on you."

He arched an eyebrow, worked his jaw as he considered the best response to that threat, but before he had a chance to speak, Barry's brain caught up to his mouth. Harrison couldn't help the slight smirk as the younger man turned a very interesting shade of red.

Still.

"I don't doubt that you could," he muttered darkly. With a final, despairing glance at the t-shirt left on his cot, he grabbed the hem of his sweater and tugged it over his head.

He had gotten somewhat used to the regular deliveries from various Internet based t-shirt shops. And by somewhat used to, it should be understood that he meant that it had gotten to the point where he'd decided to stop opening any more packages that arrived for him. If the others wanted to waste their money, well, he wasn't able to stop them. But he also wasn't going to provide any further entertainment for them by actually looking at the damn shirts. (Even if he had actually been vaguely amused by the one that said, "There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who weren't expecting this shirt to be in Base-3.") 

Though he really hoped he'd gotten it through their thick skulls to stop. buying. the damn things with the rather impressive, in his not entirely humble opinion, tear he had gone on after receiving one from Miss Smoak.

With a quick glance out of the corner of his eye -Barry was pointedly looking at his phone, leaned with a nervous pretense of nonchalance against the wall- Harrison picked up the t-shirt and pulled it on.

(Why couldn't Barry have just gotten him a copy of the shirt he was presently wearing? He'd have worn _that_. And it was obviously custom printed, so how hard would it have been to order two.)

Hopefully this would satisfy Barry, because he was most emphatically **NOT** leaving the lab wearing this travesty.

(If he _had_ to wear one of these stupid shirts for even a minute -and what had even possessed him to do this? Barry could be entirely too ~~endearing~~ convincing for his own good- Harrison would have preferred to have been able to choose the shirt. He almost liked the "Intellectual Badass" shirt.)

He turned to face the younger man, rubbing the side of his face like it might take away some of his frustration over this whole situa-

Before he could think, much less _react_ , Harrison was aware of a warm body rightnexttohim and the synthesised sound of a camera shutter.

He whipped around, but Barry was already well out of arm's reach once more, tapping at his phone in a blur of motion.

"What did you do," he snarled. Not that he didn't have a _very_ good idea of what had just transpired. But one had to make people _think_ about their mistakes. "Do not do **anything** with that photo except delete it right now!"

Barry looked up, and Harrison would have been lying if he ever said he hadn't enjoyed how the colour absolutely drained from his face. Barry's throat bobbed, a nervous grin twitched at the corners of his mouth and fell once more as Harrison continued to glare relentlessly.

"Uh. Uh... I already sent it to Iris?"

He may not have been graced with super speed, but at that moment, Harrison didn't need it. The sheer force of his ire had Barry frozen, pinned in place. He didn't resist as Harrison stormed over and plucked the phone from his grasp.

> _> >How did you get him to wear it?_  
>  i asked nicely??<<  
>  _> >Uh huh. You hid all his other shirts, didn't you._  
> 

The look Harrison gave him was completely, utterly unimpressed. Barry smiled sheepishly in response.

"There is nothing I can say that will help me here, is there?"

"Nope."

> This is Dr. Wells. Actually, he threatened to put it on me himself.<<

"Hey, wait, what are you doing?" Barry leaned forward, trying to read what Harrison had typed.

He tilted the phone awayyyyand there Barry was behind him now. Right. Fastest man alive. How could he have forgotten. Probably because Barry sometimes seemed to forget.

"Oh man, no, don't tell her that!"

His tight-lipped smile went wasted without anyone in front of him to see it as he tapped his thumb on the screen, sending the message.

"Noooo..."

"It astonishes me, Barry, how you forget you have super speed at the most inopportune moments for you," he observed.

He turned around and held the phone out, grip just firm enough to keep from dropping it, yet loose enough that when Barry grabbed it, it slid easily from his hand.

"You're evil. I should have known. You. Are evil." He stared despondently at the screen.

Harrison snorted. "I'm not the one who coerced a grown man into wearing a _grumpy cat_ t-shirt."

He had been hard-pressed to keep the amusement out of his voice -really, all things considered, he could handle being called evil because of a text message-, and it appeared he had to some degree failed, as Barry simply smiled at him in response.

"She's never going to let me live that down, you know."

He rolled his eyes. "I'd say it was all a part of my master plan to utterly humiliate you in front of your dearest friends, but you forget that _she has a picture of me in this shirt_. I'm the one who will never hear the end of it."

"True. Soooo. Since there's a picture, does this mean you're gonna wear it out of this room?" Barry's eyebrows went up, eyes glittering with mirth.

"Not on your life."

\-------

The next day when he entered the Cortex, the first thing Harrison heard was muffled snickering from where Cisco sat. He ignored it. The man was hopefully watching videos or looking at some inane pictures online, instead of doing some form of actual work. Not that he could entirely fault him for not being on task all the time. Even he had a few diversions on occasion, such as when Barry would toss the yellow suit at him and drag him off for calzones or shopping. (Though the latter had not happened since that rather disastrous trip that started with an eye-searing crime against good taste and ended with him in his current sartorial predicament.)

And then Cisco said it.

"Soooo... Is it true?"

He paused halfway to his usual seat to turn his head, stare blankly at the younger man. "Hm?"

A grin that Harrison could only describe as shit-eating spread across Cisco's face. "That you actually had fun once. I mean, I can totally see you deciding it was terrible and never doing it again and- what are you doing. Why are you looking at me like that? Stop that." Cisco's smile faltered, exchanged for something far more cautious.

Well, perhaps it was a bit unfair of him to glare like he wanted nothing more than to grab his rifle and shoot something and/or someone. After all, he had been warned that the picture had spread beyond its initial recipient. So it wasn't as though this conversation was wholly unexpected. In fact, it was probably very fair to say that this had been entirely expected. After all, he had come prepared.

Harrison slowly turned, casually sliding his hands into his pockets in a way that pulled his jacket open to reveal the shirt underneath.

' _You Read My Shirt  
that's enough interaction for one day_ '

He had to admit, Cisco's slack-jawed shock made wearing one of these shirts entirely worth the discomfort.

"No. Way."


	2. I Was Happy Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The actual bribe.
> 
> For the record, I now exist in a state I call Schrödinger's Fanboy. Where I both adore Barry's face and Harry's hair, and fucking despise them because I feel like I can't draw either well.


End file.
